Comments

I passed this exam last week and from my experience with it they do not have excessive calculations on it. If you understand order of operations for math and simple things like calculating slope percentages for instance then you will have more than enough to understand.

I did find that more than once I skipped a question because it had crazy long calculations but when I went back to the marked question I re-read it and realized they were actually looking for a general understanding of a concept about life safety or ADA or something. Then the answer was super easy to see and didn't require the calculation I previously thought it did. It is so worth it to skip and mark any question that will take you longer than 2 min to do. Even if you think you can figure it out. Come back to it and you will be amazed how much more clearly you are thinking.

I would make sure you know occupancy backwards and forwards. Read the actual IBC code chapters and memorize where the charts like height and area are located. By far the most useful information aside from what is recommended to you will be an understanding of passive systems and how they work with climate zones and active systems. Read everything you can find in all your study materials about climate, solar charts, shadows, building siting, wind studies, ect. Books that really cover this in depth are Sun, Wind, and Light: Architectural Design Strategies by Mark DeKay. I didn't read this book before PPD but I used Amber books videos which cover all the relevant topics. If you can do it, Amber books was key for me to pass PPD and have given me a solid foundation (forgive the pun) for PDD.